And?? Our first house mortgage was about this amount…and we earned less than $50,000 a year when we got it. No question…we are middle class.
All the other expenses (food, clothing, utilities) are much higher than when you were making $50k.
I still say…we need to differentiate between middle INCOME and middle CLASS. They are two completely different things.
I think so, too, @thumper1 there is a difference. I assumed this question was about income because it’s the fin aid forum. And let’s face it, how I feel has no bearing on the aid my kids may qualify for.
Personally, I do not feel middle class, although according to the Pew Research Calculator, I am squarely in the middle 50% of incomes, I was a free lunch kid in high school, got Pell and SEOG in college, and still feel very working class/blue collar. Every time someone defines frugality as no new cars or vacations, I just want to laugh. And I really don,t get the disparaging comments about Walmart because I fit right in. I can see how very wealthy people might be surprised to discover they are not middle class if that is how they were brought up.
Gotta say…some of the folks I know with higher incomes shop at Walmart for some things.
Huh? Why does earning an income higher than $50,000 mean that you must spend more on food, clothing, and utilities than when you were earning $50,000? These items tend to be more of a function of the number of people in the household, as well as how expensive their tastes are (although utilities are also a function of the housing that you choose).
Really, the spending category that automatically increases when your income increases is income and (if your labor income increases) payroll taxes. But other increased spending is optional.
I shop at Walmart. Plus, on our way to a family ski trip in the Alps, our old car (loaded up with skiis & luggage) died on the Autobahn at the Austrian border.
I know lots of higher income people who shop at walmart. It’s just convenient.
And then there are low to middle income people like me who won’t/don’t shop there.
It seems like a weird benchmark for what class or income someone is.
And yes, since this is the FA forum, I assumed the OP meant middle class in terms of income. I now fall into the low end of middle income and feel solidly middle class. If I compared myself to the rest of the people in my city, I’d be poor. The median income in my city is well over double our household income. But I don’t compare myself to that and my standard of living hasn’t really increased since my income has increased.
So yes, one may feel average compared to their neighbors, but if you’re all making 100k+ then you’re getting a very skewed view of “average.”
The UC definition of middle class for financial aid purposes ($80k-$150k) seems reasonable to me.
I know an entire agency of them, work with them, talk to them. Some are single, some are single parents. They work, they commute (who doesnt?) Some live in the district, some outside it. We actually have two locations, one in Virginia and one right by the White house, but there is a shuttle so an employee could commute to either location and take the shuttle.
My niece just took a job in DC and will make $45k. About half of her take home will go for an efficiency apartment in the District. She’ll pay for the metro. She’ll shop at Trader Joe’s. No car, and her friend with a car is giving it up as it isn’t worth it. I know a few military people doing a short term assignment in DC (1 year). They have homes elsewhere so share a house to save on expenses, but they aren’t making 6 figures. I know doctors who are making bank and live much farther out so they can have swimming pools and big houses. We lived north of Baltimore years ago and my father commuted for a few years, about 1 hour 10 minutes if he left before 6 am, about 1 hour 40 minutes if he left just few minutes later - he always left before 6.
People really do live on regular salaries even in high COL areas. My cousin and her husband like in NYC. He’s a public school teacher and she’s a librarian. When they started out they had nothing and lived in a closet. Now they’ve purchased a condo in Brooklyn and a weekend house upstate but that took 15or so years of working and saving. They dont own a car but borrow one to get to the weekend house. It’s just a different lifestyle but they make it work.
@GMTplus7 You know what the autobahn is, so that instantly makes you an outlier. And of course there is the question of how it is that you have a car in Europe to begin with! Sounds posh to me.
I prefer the definition of middle class that says you are middle class if you turn right when boarding an international flight!
I find these posts to be fascinating. They say a lot about how divided the US is.
Only on CC is an income of $150K considered middle class!! One problem on CC is that because people think that $100-150K is middle class, they are stunned when they aren’t deemed to be financially needy by universities.
From reading CC, you wouldn’t know that millions of American families consist of parents whose jobs are all part-time.
We are middle class. We are upper middle class income. There is a difference.
Some of the the threads on “I can’t afford my EFC” are because EFC doesn’t consider consumer debt. I think that goes back to the middle class income vs middle class lifestyle that some have discussed here. Two car loans, credit cards, etc. are irrelevant to FASFA and should be. Yes, for some schools, we just need to cut restaurants and travel to afford our EFC. Other private $60,000 schools we would need count every penny including stopping all retirement contributions. My solution is to take those schools off the list.
I do agree with the middle vs upper middle class distinction and that income range has to vary by location. That means that the lower class has higher incomes in those areas as well.
My husband and I are working class people with upper middle class incomes. our kids right now are educated, middle class people starting their careers with the incomes of solidly middle class people. The last kid attends a prestigious prep school with upper class people who are mainly in the financial sector. You can just look at him and see the difference between him and my husband. We feel like we have succeeded beyond our wildest expectations.
I have followed this thread with interest. I do think middle class is influenced by region and cost of living. But mostly I think middle class is having to go to work to survive. Both my husband and I work and make close to the same amount - and until recently we had to work just to pay the basic bills. I suppose we could have lived on just one salary but we would have qualified in our county (this is where the region of the country comes into play) for lunch subsidies for our children and some other government programs (health insurance subsidies, cell phone subsidies, heating subsidies, title 8 housing subsidies, etc…). When we were in the middle class vacations were a day at a nearby state park, a day at the state amusement park (every other year), or going to the shore (or mountains) for the day/weekend. We could not/did not take our kids to Disney or on other vacations.
BTW – we are now what I would consider upper middle class (before finding CC) or even upper class (reality check after finding CC) as we have matured in our work places (no job losses) and earned more and stayed married-- But we were certainly squarely middle class for most of our working lives while our kids were little until the past 5-7 years. We could now live on one salary - but we have not moved so our mortgage and bills were being paid on much less and through it all we were careful to not rack up consumer debt- but we have been putting the new “extra $” into retirement and college savings – a luxury that was not in our power when I realize we were middle class. We are expecting to be full pay for our 3 kids’ college expenses if they do not go to places with merit — and we have planned for this (one reason we both continue to work so hard). Maybe this is why so many people on CC feel that they are middle class when based in reality they are not – the demographics here for the most part are pulling in people who have been working for half of their lives (and still working- not retired) and are now making more than the median salaries.
When I see people “choose” to stay home and not work for a paycheck – that is a luxury that puts you out of the middle class IMO. You may have to make choices, cut back, drive cars until they die, not vacation, ect to do so… but that is a choice of those in an upper class can make — IMO those who I would consider middle class do not have those choices - either by low salaries or single parenting. Middle class has to work to survive even if that means cobbling together daycare/aftercare and not being home with your kids. So people may be choosing to live a “middle class life” but I do not think that should be confused with being middle class and not having that choice. Those choices come with many perks that are not available to those truly middle class families.
From my experiences, middle class families are not managing their kids activities, playdates, carpools, and future ECs – they are working to put a roof over their kids heads, clothes on their backs, and food on the table - and if they can drive their kids home from 1 after school activity or manage one sport or church event on top of their work hours - they do it for their kids at the expense of their other responsibilities (sleep, housekeeping, social life). This puts the middle class at a further disadvantage as college time rolls around. The kids of the true middle class are rarely in multiple clubs, sports, ECs - they did not have the resources (parent time or $). They most often haven’t taken the SAT/ACT multiple times, don’t have tutors, and are likely not in the best school districts in their states. The kids in the middle class living with one parent or two working parents do not have the luxury of paying for financial reach schools by the other parent going back to work or picking up a part time job.
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Its funny how different people’s view on middle class can be. Shopping at Walmart and driving cars until they die is something I thought middle class families do but for someone else that’s a horrible standard of living. I see the argument of COL but I don’t agree with the very first post that standard of living increases with more money, so they are still middle class. IMO having that standard of living increase just shows that you are not middle class anymore. I guess there is no real answer to this but its fascinating to see how people’s perceptions of “middle class” varies.
I think people who make $150k+/year can declare themselves middle income for college financial aid if that’s what they want. But then they also have to accept that the people who make ~$125k or less, and the people calculating need-based grants, get to determine their definitions as well. I don’t think claiming that you’re a middle income family is going to move many colleges to offer your child need-based aid.
If colleges choose to give need-based aid to only those making ~$125k or less/year then, in my opinion (based on the definitions here), they’re granting that aid to only low income families. If they were granting need-based aid to middle income families then those making ~$150k or more per year would be getting some, but that doesn’t appear to be the case for many. Families who don’t get enough aid have to look at less expensive schools.
I don’t believe that middle income families are shut out of expensive colleges any more than low income families are. If anything, they’re more likely to be able to send their kids away to college than low income families. They may not be able to pay ~$65k/year out-of-pocket, but many who post on CC seem to be able to afford ~$30k; some can even pay as much as ~$45k. The typical low income family (for this purpose those making ~$125k or less) with an average stats kid is going to be hard pressed to afford the colleges that families making upward of $150k/year can afford.
So feel free to use whatever definition you want, just don’t make the mistake of believing that it can (or should) qualify you for need-based aid. Run each college’s Net Price Calculator and make sure your child applies to a financial safety.
@Pizzagirl The OP asked about people feeling middle class despite an above-average income. So I responded by explaining why my family feels middle class despite having an above-average income.
CC totally warps your view. You can read a thread of someone barely getting by and feel that you are quite comfortable financially. Click another link and you feel poverty stricken when you see what others are paying fully out of pocket for two kids at top LACS with no real concerns or worries. Land somewhere else and you believe you have found your brethren, the hard working middle to upper middle class. As many others have said, it is all relative.
In general, I would say that on CC middle class would be those able to afford their state universities without FA except for perhaps the very base level (5k-7k per year) student loan …but not able to pay for a private institutions without grants or scholarships and not willing/wanting their kids or themselves to take out massive loans to do so.